This week, Gov. Rick Perry proposed reforms to the U.S. Congress that among other things would result in that institution looking significantly more like the Texas Legislature. Many observers have suggested that is not a good thing for a host of reasons. Here I highlight one additional negative externality of the Texas model: roll call voting errors by representatives.

During the 2011 regular and special sessions, members of the Texas House cast roll call votes on 999 votes that were at least minimally contested (i.e., 2.5 percent of representatives voting were on the losing side). In a total of 1,402 instances, a representative voted either yes or no, and then later requested that a statement be inserted in the House Journal to indicate either that, while they voted yes, they had intended to vote no; or vice versa. While these statements allow the representative to go on the record with a different position on the vote (e.g., saying they opposed a bill in spite of the fact that their recorded vote indicates they favored the bill), they do not retroactively affect the legislative process (where the actual vote cast is what counts).

Since entering the presidential race in August, Gov. Rick Perry has been sharply criticized by many of his Republican opponents for being soft on immigration. These attacks have focused on Perry’s support for in-state tuition rates at Texas colleges and universities for undocumented immigrants, opposition to efforts to pass legislation similar to Arizona’s draconian immigration reform (SB-1070) in Texas (the law “may be right for Arizona, but it ain’t exactly right for Texas”), and disagreement with proposals to construct a fence/barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

In the midst of these continued attacks, on Monday Perry may have received some partial assistance from an unlikely source: President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ).